Breaking Away

It took one second to happen, a few minutes to focus and days later before I realized the meaning.



Late, last Friday afternoon in a small parking lot on campus there was a loud, thud sound in the side street beside me, which made me look up as it was simultaneous to a speeding car driving by.  I remember thinking it might have been a muffler backfiring but then I became distracted by my own judgements.  It had been a black, very shiny Hummer-like brand new car speeding by which found me weighing in narrowly on students of privilege.  It was Little 500 weekend, and apparently it was starting off with a bang.



Just then I saw it.  In the middle of the street.  It was gray, oval shaped, really large and sort of rocking back and forth.  Part of me didn’t care to find out what it was while another part of me got very curious.  A third part froze, as for some reason it now looked to be a huge hornet’s nest.  A gigantic hornet’s nest, rocking in the middle of the road immediately after that car from another planet drove by.  It was like a quiet emergency with no one around to witness, but me.  Soon it seemed it would find its balance and be still.  A quiet emergency of a rocking hornet’s nest, ready to explode with potentially more disgruntled hornets inside from hell than any sci-fi movie could conjure.  A hornet’s nest from … wait a minute.  Why would students be throwing out a hornet’s nest from their car? How does a Hummer get a humungous hornet’s nest inside it in the first place? Should I be calling 911?  It was then that my left brain took over and gave my imagination a time out. 



By now the swaying had settled and the large gray, oval shaped object was finally still.  There it sat, in the middle of the street, like a meteor landing from outer space with no one around to see it.  It was then I decided I needed to learn more.  Carefully.



I walked slowly toward it, very slowly. Rushing over in any way seemed synonymous with a death wish. As I got closer, I could see there were layers to it, and was imagining all the small hornet nests I had seen in my life which always have struck me as being a magnificent insect papier-mâché project.  Each step brought it more into focus.  It was like being at the eye doctor when they put a round lens in the slot and ask you if you can see better now.  How about now?  Now?  Well, now it was clear it wasn’t a hornet’s nest after all.  It was the head of a Buddha. 



A head of a large Buddha statue had landed in the middle of the road on a Friday afternoon in front of me during Little 500 Weekend in the land of Breaking Away.  I’ve seen a lot of crazy in twenty years of the Best College Weekend so, to be honest, this was just silly.  Until my heart caught up with my head.  A Buddha statue is sacred.  It is considered one of the most important parts of the body of the Buddha as it represents infinite knowledge as the Awakened One.  A headless Buddha statue in the middle of a road is wrong, on myriad levels. Everything got very quiet and I wished I wasn’t alone. 



There aren’t any employee manuals for this one. No lessons to learn on how to make decisions when the head of broken Buddha statue is suddenly randomly in a street, and needs to be removed.  Or needs to find its home.  Or body.  It’s a moment gingerly balancing comedy and tragedy, piety and purpose.



I was frozen in place in the parking lot pondering these deep thoughts when a young man slowly began walking down the steep steps from his porch on the other side of this small street.  We were both in this moment together and yet he didn’t see me at all.  He stepped slowly forward, but then bravely onto the sidewalk, then eventually into the street.  I had decided he was the chosen savior and me, merely the elder to someday tell the tale.   This youthful soul stood over the beheaded Buddha and did nothing, for a long time.  Or a few seconds, which is an eternity when you experience universe perplexity.  He seemed to be gathering information as well, and then took his foot and nudged the head gently.  Then again, as if to wake it up.  Then he glanced right, then slowly left and back down but never forward to see me.  Finally, he tenderly picked it up.  It took a bit for him to find the balance of it all.  Then he simply carefully carried it back up the stairs and went inside.  
  

I left.  I regretted it, but I left.  I told myself it seemed better left alone and held no real information.



That weekend I almost went back to knock on the young man’s door to find out what he had actually done with it.  Maybe it was stolen and needed reporting.  Something I can’t quite frame seemed to make me want to ask, but something equally urgent immediately stopped me. By now it may have been recycled as a footstool, a beer bong holder or a kitschy knick-knack.  It would all seem no big deal to most but I was struggling with the responsibility and meaning of it all.  In all likelihood, it may simply have just gone into the trash.  It was a busy college weekend and I moved on to other much more important things. 
 
Days later the parallel hit me like a thud.  I had spent the week seeking out news stories and photographer’s captures regarding the earthquake in Nepal, which had happened early Saturday morning of Little 500 weekend.  Thousands had died, and millions of sacred pieces were destroyed. It seemed we were a world in mourning a tragedy a lifetime away.  Then I saw it.  These stunning captures showed temples in ruins, people in shock, homes demolished and lives lost. It was heartbreaking. 


The streets were filled with people, its culture, faiths and traditions in shock.

And statues of broken Buddha’s all around. 

(Photo: A Buddha statue is surrounded by debris from a collapsed temple in the UNESCO world heritage site of Bhaktapur in Nepal. Image: Omar Havana/Getty Images)